NASA Pulls Technical Database Offline During Security Investigation

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NASA has taken its huge database of technical reports offline in
response to the arrest last weekend of a former contractor
suspected of spying for China.

The space agency decided to shut down the NASA Technical Reports
Server (NTRS) as part of a broad security review spurred by the
arrest of Bo Jiang, who was grabbed by FBI agents Saturday
(March 16) on a China-bound plane at Dulles International Airport
outside Washington, D.C.

"I’ve closed down the NASA Technical Reports database while we
review whether there’s a risk," NASA chief Charles Bolden told
the House Appropriations Committee Wednesday (March 20) during a
hearing set up to probe
possible security lapses at space agency centers.

Questioning NASA security

Jiang had worked as a contractor for the National Institute of
Aerospace at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va. He's
suspected of attempting to take sensitive technology back to his
native China; officials say he lied to law enforcement about the
electronics gear he was carrying aboard the plane. [ NASA
Chief Talks to Congress About Security (Video) ]

Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.) announced Jiang's arrest at a press
conference Monday (March 18), during which he also voiced concern
about the information freely available in databases like the
NTRS.

"NASA should immediately take down all publicly available
technical data sources until all documents that have not been
subjected to export control review have received such a review
and all controlled documents are removed from the system," Wolf
said.

NASA has taken other actions in addition to closing down the
NTRS, Bolden added. For example, he has tightened access to NASA
facilities for people from countries viewed as espionage threats,
including China, Burma, Eritrea, Iran,
North Korea, Saudi Arabia and Uzbekistan.

No new access will be granted to citizens of those nations until
further notice, Bolden said, and the ability of existing NASA
workers from those countries to access agency facilities via
remote computers has been temporarily suspended.

"NASA takes all your allegations of security violations, and
those from anyone else, very seriously," Bolden said during the
hearing. "This is about national security, not about NASA
security, and I take that personally. I'm responsible and I will
hold myself accountable once our reviews are completed."

Public documents?

Not everybody is happy with the decision to take the NTRS
offline.

"Essentially, the mindset represented by Rep. Wolf and embraced
by NASA fears the consequences of unauthorized disclosure more
than it values the benefits of openness," Steven Aftergood of the
Federation of American Scientists wrote in a blog
post Wednesday.

"It is a familiar outlook that has wreaked havoc with the
nation’s historical declassification program,and has periodically
disrupted routine access to record collections at the National
Archives, as well as online collections at the CIA, the Los
Alamos technical report library, and elsewhere," Aftergood added.

Some experts said that the NTRS, and public access to NASA
documents, may now never be the same.

“There is a huge amount of material on NTRS,” space policy
analyst Dwayne Day told Aftergood. “If NASA is forced to review
it all, it will never go back online."